Yesterday I wrote about how Republican Congressman Roger Wicker is having his support for pork-barrel politics used against him in his campaign to succeed pork-loving Senator Trent Lott in Mississippi.  Today there's even more evidence that the price of pork is still moving higher:

"Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today... (asked) for an investigation into whether Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) violated federal bribery law by including a $2 million earmark for Voyager Expanded Learning in a bill a mere four days after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from company executives and their relatives. CREW also asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the matter."

According to CREW's news release,

"Randy Best, a top Republican donor and Bush pioneer, founded Voyager, an educational products company and rather than selling the company's reading program to school districts, hired lobbyists to obtain earmarks for it. Although the House had appropriated $1 million for his program for the D.C. public schools, Best still needed a Senate sponsor. A lobbyist arranged a meeting with Sen. Landrieu, the chair of the Appropriations subcommittee responsible for the District of Columbia, to press for an earmark.

Shortly after Sen. Landrieu met with Best, a member of Sen. Landrieu's staff asked him to hold a fundraiser for her and he agreed. After the fundraiser, she received $30,000 in campaign contributions from individuals associated with the company -- donors who had never before contributed to her. Four days after she received the money, she inserted an earmark into a D.C. appropriations bill, giving D.C. schools $2 million to buy Best's reading program, which was unproven and had not been requested by the school system."

Think Sen. Landrieu's having second thoughts about securing that pork-barrel earmark?  Think just about every other elected official in Washington is going to think twice about securing their next pork-barrel earmarks?  Mmm-hmmm. The price of pork is still moving higher - let's keep the pressure up and make it cost them more in political capital to secure earmarks for their special-interest cronies than to say "No" every now and then.